Cowichan Rugby Football 1st Division Men @ Velox Academy

The founding of the Cowichan Rugby Football Club in 1962 was not the beginning, but the revival of a dormant game.

George Whittaker, long since deceased, told me of playing in the twenties, packing down in the scrum and continually chafing his shoulder on the backside of the front row player. It turned out that was where his teammate kept his false teeth! The origin of the name “rugby football” is found in the eventual divergence of the two sports groups previously grouped in unruly games of “foot-the-ball” up to the mid-19 th century. As rules emerged “association football”, or soccer, became quite different from “rugby football”. That’s my story, anyway.

The following outlines the physical emergence of the club from the tangled web, post-1962. It does not deal with personalities because of risk of omission. As a group of individuals the club has its humourists, rogues, politicians, blackguards, far-sighted, short-sighted, penurious and wealthy, industrious and ambitious, and layabouts.

In other words, a good cross-section of Canadian society. They all contribute in their unique ways to the good of the club.

At first there was the idea. No field, no clubhouse, no changing rooms. Fixtures were arranged and a field found for the occasion. The club was the team on the field on that particular day. When the game ended and the beer was consumed, the club vanished. After a while one member and his wife offered their home for the after game “tea parties”. This gave the club some continuity and was greatly appreciated. There came a time, however, when the next step had to be taken: a permanent, independent location.